The title of this article is a recent quote from Steven Crowder, an immensely popular conservative YouTuber with almost six million subscribers. “He’s not wrong about everything,” Crowder quipped about Kanye West’s recent and obviously anti-Semitic remarks. “Is there a conversation to be had about secular humanists with Jewish last names exploiting people in Hollywood?”

Crowder went on to articulate that these “secular humanists with Jewish last names” aren’t evil “because they’re Jewish”. His distinction serves two purposes here. First, it allows a modicum of plausible deniability for anti-Semites and people foolish enough to believe “I hate Jews, but not because they are Jewish” is a legitimate opinion. Second, it allows the divorcing of Jews with non-reactionary views from the Jewish populace as a whole. It separates Jews that Crowder finds worthy–religious conservatives like Ben Shapiro, the late Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli far-right–with those he finds unworthy. The fact that Crowder was referring to wealthy Hollywood executives is irrelevant here, as he does not make a distinction between powerful Jews who aren’t religious and Jews who hold left-wing views. For Crowder, there is no water between Noam Chomsky and Harvey Weinstein. They’re both part of the same cabal.

The comment section of Crowder’s video rips the mask off this farce. It’s full of open anti-Semites. So too with “journalist” Tim Pool’s Kanye West interview, in which Pool tried to make a distinction between “the corporate press” treating Kanye unfairly vs. Jews as a monolithic bloc doing so. A large chunk of these comments consisted of Pool’s fans criticizing him for not identifying the “real problem”, i.e., Jews.

Crowder is noteworthy here because he straddles the gap between American conservatism–people like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson–and overt fascists like Milo Yiannopolis and Nick Fuentes. That gap shrinks by the day. We may soon see mainstream Republicans running on a rhetorical platform similar to Crowder’s. Donald Trump’s admonishment of American Jews for “not caring about Israel” is probably a portent of an ever-more noxious Republican Party, one an inch from Nazi talking points on Jewish issues. The predominance of conservative discourse on “cultural Marxism” (The Nazis said “cultural Bolshevism”) means we’re already pretty close.

Where does this thinly-veiled prejudice come from? Consider Slavoj Zizek’s commentary on anti-Semitism in The Sublime Object of Ideology. In response to the overt anti-Semitism of Nazis and their ilk, Zizek writes, many will say that

‘The Nazis are condemning the Jews too hastily, without proper argument, so let us take a cool, sober look and see if they are really guilty or not; let us see if there is some truth in the accusations against them.’ Is it really necessary to add that such an approach would merely confirm our so-called ‘unconscious prejudices’ with additional rationalizations? The proper answer to anti-Semitism is therefore not ‘Jews are really not like that’ but ‘the anti-Semitic idea of Jew has nothing to do with Jews; the ideological figure of a Jew is a way to stitch up the inconsistency of our own ideological system.’

Zizek is a difficult and provocative thinker, but my interpretation of this passage is that people like Crowder will find “the Jew” a convenient ideological fantasy to justify already-held beliefs. For Crowder, whose politics revolve around disgust at those he finds displeasing–black people and LGBT people in particular–”The Jew” serves as the source of the revulsion. This is to say, Crowder and company cannot admit that queer people have a legitimate right to their gender and sexual expression, or that black people have legitimate grievances with contemporary America. There must therefore be a nefarious source spreading these ideas among the populace. The source of the “repulsive ideology” is, conveniently, “secular humanists with Jewish last names”. By situating Jews as the master manipulators, Crowder legitimizes the prejudices he previously held and espoused.

We must remember that conservatives have set the bar impossibly high for what constitutes prejudice. Donald Trump, for instance, in justifying his dinner with Kanye West, denied Kanye’s anti-Semitism by saying that Kanye did not, in that particular dinner, say anything anti-Semitic. Similarly, Steven Crowder denied Kanye’s anti-Semitism by saying that Kanye was “using a Howitzer”, but “doesn’t hate Jews.” For the modern conservative, to be prejudiced is to hold hatred for a group in one’s heart of hearts. As humanity has not yet developed telepathy, this is a standard that cannot be met. The potentially virtuous inner life of a Nazi does not prevent him from doing the things that Nazis do.

History does not look kindly on these conservative fence-sitters, those who refuse to oppose fascism. Paul Von Hindenburg is not viewed as an anti-fascist but rather as the man who invited the Nazis into government. Erwin Romell, who was perhaps not a Nazi in his political inner life, still served as the general of a fascist army. Aside from Claus Von Stauffenberg, the conservatives and monarchists who fought alongside the Nazis are remembered correctly as Nazis. Ditto with Steven Crowder.

To quote the novelist A.R. Moxon: “Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is ‘Nazi.’ Nobody cares about their motives anymore.”

The post “Secular Humanists with Jewish Last Names” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Kamala Harris, California’s junior senator and perhaps a 2020 presidential candidate, is walking into the quagmire of political correctness with a nominee for the federal court in Nebraska. It has to do, in part, with religion. Most politicians tend to avoid questions related to religion because the risk of offending someone is far greater than the payoff of criticism, however justified.

In this particular case, Senator Harris, along with Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii are raising questions about Brian Buescher, who has been nominated by Donald Trump to serve on a federal district court in Nebraska. It turns out that Mr. Buescher is a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization.

The Knights of Columbus is an all-male group, clearly an anachronism, but as a private organization, they have the right to restrict their membership in this way. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal quotes Senator Hirono as saying that the Knights “hold a number of extreme positions, particularly on same-sex marriage and abortion.”

But the question is should Mr. Buescher be disqualified because of guilt by association. After all, John F. Kennedy was also a member of the Knights, but he made compelling arguments that if elected president, he would separate church from state and make decisions based on the constitution and not the bible.

Mr. Buescher has somewhat followed President Kennedy’s strategy and has said that as a judge he would uphold precedent by both the Supreme Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is certainly understandable that Senator Harris has concerns about the associations of any person being considered for a judgeship, or any number of other federal jobs. But the problem is, where do we draw the line?

The French historian Alexis de Tocqueville found that one of the unique characteristics of Americans is how they form groups, and strongly identify themselves with these groups. In one sense, a group provides support for individuals. In a different sense, a group provides baggage for individuals.

So, a key question becomes, how can someone belong to a group, enjoy the benefits, and not be responsible for those components of the group that are not in their comfort zone?

Some groups are very purposeful, such as a professional scientific organization. But others are based on beliefs, even myths. Religious groups tend to resemble the latter.

But religion is such an engrained part of our past, that it is unrealistic to limit those who are qualified to hold positions such as judgeships to those who do not have religious affiliations.

The bottom line seems to be that individuals can have religious affiliations, not necessarily because joining a religion was motivated by rational thinking or even an emotional need for community. Rather, it is something that is almost in their genes, at least in the recent history of them and their families. The question is whether or not, like John F. Kennedy, the individual can separate the secular from the religious. If they can, this is tantamount to an individual acknowledging that religion may serve a purpose for them, but when it comes to decisions that impact others, it has to sit on the sidelines.

I definitely want to see Kamala Harris succeed and not fall into rabbit-holes that can be avoided. She has had her own experiences with religion, growing up in both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. But as a public official, she is very comfortable taking the road of rationality. Our goal is to increase the number of humans who are comfortable with reason and empathy. In the process, we may have to forgive some people for how they got there.

The post Kamala Harris: Walking the Tight-Rope of Political Correctness appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As we in the U.S. watched the federal government shut down because of one man’s fixation on a border-wall boondoggle meant to exclude desperate families fleeing violence and poverty, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, an estimated 3.5 to 5 million women forcefully demonstrated that exclusion is not the only reason to build a wall.

Here’s the story of how millions of brave women came together to demand gender equality, respect, and inclusion by using their bodies as the building blocks to form a 385-mile-long human chain. They called their wall the Vanitha mathil, or the women’s wall.

The story begins in September 2018, when India’s supreme court overturned a centuries-old ban that forbade women of reproductive age from entering the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. The Sabarimala Temple is an important annual pilgrimage destination for more than a million Hindus. Although the supreme court’s decision was groundbreaking, it failed to alter long-held religious beliefs about the impurity of women’s bodies. It also failed to stop the day-to-day shaming and discrimination of menstruating girls and women—who are forbidden to prepare food or even to step foot in a temple.

Since the ruling, the Hindu nationalist party and religious hardliners have ramped up their intimidation tactics. Female pilgrims have been attacked. Women between the ages of ten and fifty have been prevented from entering the temple. Journalists have been denied access and pushed out of the area. Police charged with protecting female worshipers have been battered with stones.

Women of all ages responded by pulling out their most powerful asset—themselves. Does their response sound familiar to those of you who took to the streets for women’s marches following the 2016 election? Or ran for office in 2018? Or decided to override guilt and shame to speak out about discrimination, intimidation, or sexual assault?

On New Year’s Day 2019, Karala’s women’s wall became the largest gathering of women demonstrating in support of gender equality in India’s history. The next day, two 40-year-old women under police protection entered Sabarimala Temple and offered their prayers. In defiance of the court, after the women left the temple was shut down for a cleansing ritual.

Speaking on behalf of the local government’s intention to uphold the court’s decision and reflecting on the clash of women’s demand for equal treatment and the intransigence of traditional religious beliefs, KK Sahilaja, minister for social justice in Kerala and a participant in the women’s wall, pulled no punches. “We stand for gender equality,” she said. “Those saying that women are impure should be ashamed of themselves. How can they say women are impure in front of God.”

I am not a Hindu, nor do I feel a connection to any religion. But that doesn’t matter. I recognize in the faces of the women and girls of Kerala the same determination of all women to fight for our right to be included.

The post Defying religious misogyny, Hindu women create a human wall of inclusion appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When you’re running for a school board position in suburban St. Louis and tweet out memes about banning Islam in America, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, you could be invited to speak at a candidates’ forum at the local mosque. And that’s how it came to be that the first words Parkway School Board candidate Jeanie Ames spoke to the assembled crowd at the mosque were, “I am not a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic racist.”

In fact, Ames spent the better part of her two-minute opening statement trying to defend herself against charges of bigotry and racism that had arisen, in part, from her retweet of a graphic calling for the banning of Islam in America.

She has since claimed that the offending tweet — and  others — were misconstrued or taken out of context. Unfortunately for Ames, her personal Twitter feed makes the context of her remarks crystal clear: Her motto, MAKE PARKWAY GREAT AGAIN, may offer a clue as to who has influenced her thinking.

In her Twitter profile, she describes herself as a “Proud wife mommy – Free market Capitalist – Constitutionalist – Catholic – Confederate – Lily-wearing – Metal lovin – Grass Roots – American Badass.”

Yeah, she called herself a “confederate.”

On January 24, the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran this article with the headline, A self-described ‘Confederate’ is running for Parkway School Board. Residents are alarmed. The article called her out not only for wanting to ban Islam, but also for referring to Michelle Obama as a “giant rat.”

Ames’ attitudes had begun to alarm a lot of people. Some who spoke to the newspaper noted:

“Jeanie Ames’ record of racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and other bigotry prove beyond any doubt that she has no place on the Parkway School District’s Board of Education … All people of conscience who believe in the value and place of all children at Parkway schools should oppose Ames’ candidacy in the strongest terms.”
— Anna Baltzer of Jewish Voice for Peace

“It is quite disturbing to say the least that a person with views such as ‘banning Islam from America’ is running for the Parkway School Board.”
— Mufti Asif Umar, imam of Daar-Al-Islam Masjid a mosque situated in the school district.

What else motivates Ms. Ames? Have a look at the banner on her Twitter page.

What does Jeanie Ames really want to do for the Parkway School Board? Is she misunderstood? Have her many offensive tweets somehow been taken out of context? The people in the photo below protested outside the March 25 candidate forum because they don’t believe she’s been misunderstood. They think Jeanie Ames has made herself perfectly clear.

This is an important moment in the community. Will Ames win or lose? And what will that tell us about ourselves?

Postscript:

Many of Ames’ neighbors have yard signs for the more progressive candidates in the race. None have Ames signs. Some are coming more to the point by posting yard signs stating “Hate has no home here.”

In the end, Ames lost, getting just 12.2% of the vote.

The post “Xenophobic, anti-Islam, anti-Semitic racist.” Who, me? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It should not surprise us that Judge Roy Moore supporters and others on the extreme right have taken to lambasting the Washington Post. When it comes to credible news outlets, to quote Jon Stewart, the Roy Moores of the world “got nothing.”

If you are a progressive, if you are a moderate, you have a wide range of local and national media outlets that present empirical evidence and provide skilled analysis. The Washington Post may now be the flagship publication because it has almost unlimited resources thanks to the ownership of Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame.

But obviously the New York Times, the Boston Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle and a host of other newspapers and magazines are constantly providing credible journalism. When it comes to electronic media, there is PBS, NPR as well as CNN, MSNBC and CBS. Then there are the exclusively on-line newspapers such as the Huffington Post.

If you’re a Roy Moore supporter in Alabama, a follower of Steve Bannon and Breitbart, a member of the Tea Party, you have to feel that you are consistently being piled on by this national media.

Yes, this credible media makes mistakes, witness the writings of Judith Miller of the New York Times on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but by and large they apply the type of thinking reflective of the Enlightenment that has been a cornerstone of America democracy throughout its history.

It’s possible that if the Founding Fathers were still amongst us, one of their biggest disappointments would be the disdain that so many Americans have for using empirical evidence as the basis of reaching conclusions. Part of the dissonance between the Founding Fathers and those currently on the right wing is that the Fathers tended to be skeptical of literal interpretation of the Bible. To many on the right, a literal interpretation of the Bible (when convenient) provides a respite from the challenges of rational thinking.

If there are few in the land of Roy Moore who want to, or are capable of, providing rational analysis of contemporary events, then the people are truly at a loss. If it is more important to the people to believe that they are a persecuted minority, then what they might read in the Washington Post, etc.  just further reinforces their notion of being the little people who are kicked around.

What is interesting and equally sad is that many other minorities seem to be able to cut through the B.S., correctly identify their oppressors, and develop strategies to improve their situations. The civil right movement was based on a commitment to the values delineated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There was a minimal amount of “poor me” and a great deal more emphasis on self-improvement and building bridges with one-time and even current oppressors.

Irony of ironies may be that white Southerners who historically have berated and discriminated against African-Americans now see a landscape in which more and more African-Americans are reaching the American dream and thriving in an information society. At the same time, so many on the right, particularly those who are white, just seem flummoxed by the way the world operates. Their frustration leads to resentment towards the main branches of this information society including such credible media points as the Washington Post.

As upsetting as it can be to have one of our fifty states seriously considering sending the likes of Roy Moore to represent them in the United States Senate, it is also saddening. It is even understandable that those who are so left behind modern society would rather fight for non-separation of church and state, fight to protect a likely sexual abuser, fight for someone who seems incapable of trying to advance the economic and human rights interests of the people of Alabama, than to see Roy Moore as he is and cast him aside for someone more modern.

Reconstruction has had its successes, look at Atlanta. But there is still so far to go.

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At the conclusion of his “Here’s my take” on his Sunday, February 19, 2017 GPS program, Fareed Zakaria referenced how Roman leaders maintained control over the masses. Their strategy was to give them bread to eat and a circus to watch and then the people would be happy enough to not rebel.

Zakaria suggested that Donald Trump is utilizing the same strategy with the American people, or at least with his political base. The problem, according to Zakaria, is that while Trump is providing plenty of circus, he’s very short on the bread. To Zakaria, this could provide the death knell of the Trump administration.

As wise and scholarly as Zakaria is, I suggest that he read (or likely re-read) Thomas Frank’s 2007 book, What’s the Matter with Kansas. The subtitle to Frank’s book is “How conservatives won the heart of America” and that tells us a lot. Frank does not say that conservatives addressed the economic needs of the bottom 50%. In other words, conservatives did not give modern Americans the equivalent of the Roman bread that the emperors gave to their subjects.

Wikipedia summarizes “What’s the Matter with Kansas”:

According to the book, the political discourse of recent decades has dramatically shifted from social and economic equality to the use of “explosive” cultural issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, which are used to redirect anger toward “liberal elites.”

Against this backdrop, Frank describes the rise of political conservatism in the social and political landscape of Kansas, which he says espouses economic policies that do not benefit the majority of people in the state.

Another foreshadowing of what Trump is doing was offered a year later by candidate Barack Obama at a San Francisco fundraiser:

And it’s not surprising then they [blue collar workers in small-town America, and elsewhere] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Today marks one month since Donald Trump was inaugurated. He is following the insight of Thomas Frank (Kansas book) and challenging Zakaria’s interpretation of Roman rule. Trump is long on giving his base the “guns and God” for which they yearn. He has really done little to provide economic benefit to blue collar workers, who almost by definition, do not profit by whatever gains the stock market is making to further please Trump’s wealthy friends.

Reaching as far back as Ronald Reagan, Republicans have done little to generate economic benefits for the “forgotten Americans.” On the other hand, during Republican rule, the economic condition of the 50% has not gotten significantly worse – except for one instance. At the end of George W. Bush’s term, forgotten Americans were taking a bite when as much as 700,000 jobs were being lost a month. Bush was paying the price of fighting two wars without paying for them, all the while letting Wall Street operate without necessary regulations. The great recession of 2007-2009 was one time when what went wrong on Wall Street definitely impacted those living or working on Main Street.

During the first month of the Trump administration, Wall Street has continued to soar as it did through the Obama presidency. The January unemployment figures were good. But one month does not make a presidency.

Trump’s clown show / circus continues to entertain his base. While liberals abhor Trump’s bullying of the press, most Trump supporters are either amused or indifferent. Regardless of what he says, he puts on a good show for those who like low-brow entertainment.

Based on recent history, no matter how much Trump pisses off the media and progressive to moderate Democrats, he will stand in good stead, so long as the economy does not tank. But he is challenging international trade order and seems to be oblivious to what technology and artificial intelligence are doing to the fabric of our economy. The economic stimulus that he promised as he spoke of the numerous infrastructure problems in America is not seeing the light of day, and if it did, Congressional Republicans would be unlikely to accept.

Because most progressives actually care about the well-being of the American people, they face a problem that Republicans rarely do. Faced with a Faustian bargain, would progressive like to see the standard of living for the bottom 50% improve, even if it would keep Trump’s popularity high within his base? With Mitch McConnell as the prime cheerleader, we know that Republicans easily foreswear the well-being of the people for their political gain.

What we do know is that life is complicated and does not lend itself to easy answers. As the Trump circus featuring God and guns continues, there is economic uncertainty. Maybe the Romans were right, maybe Fareed Zakaria was right, maybe Thomas Frank was right. One thing is clear. Progressive should worry, whether the economy sustains or tanks.

The post The Romans had it partially right about Trump appeared first on Occasional Planet.

As I watched some of the Bernie Sanders supporters at the Monday night session of the Democratic National Convention, I couldn’t help but think of the 1992 baseball film, A League of Their Own. Tom Hanks is the manager of a World War II era women’s barnstorming baseball team. At one point, he become befuddled by one of his player’s despair and he says, “There’s no crying in baseball.” You can see the great scene at the bottom of this post.

During the primary season, I preferred Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. I liked Bernie because I thought that for a time period (up until the week preceding the New York primary), he was about as good as we could get. I loved his progressive ideas coupled with his ability to usually keep his ego in check. I didn’t consider him to be perfect, largely because he is a human being and none of us reach that level, or even come close. I respected him, but I didn’t worship him.

I had to wonder about some of Bernie’s supporters. The tenacity with which they stuck with fine gentleman on Monday night became scary to me. What made it particularly difficult to handle was the notion that if they really trusted him to a level that brought them to tears, why didn’t they trust him enough to follow his suggestion that they now turn their support to Hillary Clinton. This, for no other reason than to prevent Donald Trump from becoming our Supreme Leader.

The words and actions of many Bernie supporters on Monday night reminded me of people who are extremely religious and profess to the Bible. Strict religious constructionists see the Bible as the “Word of Truth.”

But frequently they get stumped and insist that there are exceptions to the literal interpretation of the gospel. For example, Leviticus18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Yet Christians who accept gay rights must sacrifice their absolute fealty to the Bible in order to make sense of the world. Let’s face it, the Bible does not form a close union with the way in which the world actually operates on a day-to-day basis.

There are tears at political convention, but they are usually drowned out by yelling and screaming. It’s odd, delegates at the convention are engaged in perhaps the most important collective decision-making that Americans have to make. Who do we want as our leaders?

Yet there is virtually no rational discussion, no cost-benefit analysis, no timeouts for walks in the park to try to straighten things out. Rather the happenings at a convention are similar to college fans at a sporting event. There is cheering and jeering; booing and mocking. It seems that no one is right except the team (candidate) that one is supporting.

While there can be inspiring words from the podium as well as words of reason, many delegates remain steadfast in their blind loyalty to the candidate of their choice. But it is a meeting of delegates to make a decision as to who will represent their political party in the presidential race. If it works well (and it doesn’t always), there will be a democratic decision as to who the nominee will be. If it doesn’t work well, then the fault is not just “the other candidate,” but also a terribly flawed system that requires the highest level of rational thinking to repair.

Comedienne Sarah Silverman told the “Bernie or bust” delegates that they were being ridiculous. I agree with her sentiments, although I would have preferred a less absolute description of what they were doing. The bottom line is that a political convention does not have to resemble a religious revival or a college football game. As all cases when decisions are being made, it is important for us to express our emotions, but to also know how to keep them in check.

I commend Bernie Sanders and his supporters for moving Hillary Clinton into a far more progressive position than she was when the campaign began. She can run on a platform that is as progressive as Bernie.

The progressive movement does not end with Bernie. There is much to be done and opportunities are probably better than any time since Lyndon Johnson launched the Great Society and before he got us to deeply mired in the Vietnam War. LBJ said, “let us reason together.” That should be the fundamental difference between the progressives of the left and the conservatives of the right.
Embed:

The post There’s no crying in baseball, or politics appeared first on Occasional Planet.

You wouldn’t think that it would be controversial for a journalism professor to come to high schools in the Midwest to discuss his reporting on current issues in science. And it wasn’t. Justin Catanoso, director of the journalism program at chair of the Wake Forest University, came to St. Louis the week of April 25. In addition to meeting with students at Washington University, he visited six high schools and one middle school to discuss his research on climate change in Peru. And it was not controversial.

This is Missouri, and contrary to myopic and outright mean memes that have been coming out of the recent session of the state legislature, this is not North Carolina or Florida where state law forbids teachers from using terms like “climate change” or “rising ocean tides.” Yet the issue of climate change is still political and many schools shy away from teaching about it.

Catanoso diplomatically discusses the issues with, as Barack Obama says, “the fierce urgency of now.” He says that we cannot shy away from the challenges and look for a Plan ‘B.’ His reasoning is straightforward: because there is no Plan ‘B.’ If the human species (as well as all others on earth) is to survive, humans need to take affirmative and significant steps to restore the climate to where it was in the 1850s, with only 225 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; not the current level of 400.

He notes in speaking with students that the United States is the only country in the world where climate change is a public issue. Every other country has come to face reality and without equivocation wants to contribute to the solution. This was very apparent at the COP21 conference in Paris that he covered in December 2015. He pointed out to students that the existence of a COP21 conference meant that there were twenty Conferences of the Parties that preceded it, and they had all failed to reach the meaningful consensus and agreement that came in Paris.

The question of why the United States has not followed the recent movement of Australia and Canada from skeptics to “accepters” is difficult to answer. But there is no denying the presence of the elephant in the room: There is one political party in the United States that seems to refuse to accept science, at least so long as the producers, distributors and financers of fossil fuels continue to pad their candidates’ campaigns.

Catanoso is not closed-minded about fossil fuels. He notes that over the past fifteen years, carbon-based fuels have played a major role in allowing three hundred million Chinese citizens to move out of poverty. These fuels propelled us into and through the industrial age. But now the damage that they do to our planet has become of far greater consequence than any economic good that can come from their continued wide-spread use. With extinction as a possible outcome of their continued use, the choice is relatively easy for most human beings.

Thanks to the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which sponsored Catanoso’s trip to St. Louis, Catanoso was able to reason with students at Crossroads College Preparatory School, Hixson Middle School, Lindbergh High School, Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School, Nerinx Hall High School, Parkway Central High School, Parkway West High School and St. Louis University High School about how the actions of humans have taken our planet out of its natural balance.

Regrettably, there are still millions of Americans who deny climate change. Fortunately, the head in the sand is less prominent among young citizens than the more elderly. But young people become old and often adopt the ways of their elders. In the case of recognizing climate change, this is not a wise risk.

We need more Justin Catanosos going to our nation’s schools and dispelling the misinformation that many teachers and parents bring to these schools. Climate change is hardly the only issue in which ignorance is bliss in many schools. Conservatives have blanketed our airwaves and suffocated many of our school districts. Most issues that progressives care about do not lend themselves to short-term solutions; they require generational change. As progressives have historically done in our colleges and universities, they need to make their presence disproportionately known in our elementary and secondary schools. To paraphrase the words attributed to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in “All the President’s Men”, “Boys, if you screw this up, nothing less than the future of the free world rests in your hands.”

The post Teaching the reality of climate change, one classroom at a time appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Republicans tend to believe that the bulwark of their strength comes from those people who are very conservative, which includes the millions of Evangelical Christians in the United States. In order to appeal to these groups, Republicans do, used to take on the mantle of what linguist George Lakoff has called “the stern father image.” No humor here, just strict conformance with what is right and proper.

Anyone who saw the Republican debate from Houston on February 25 would have to say that the candidates seemed to act more as if they were in a “clown car” than as upright, proper citizens. Why is it that the stern view from the pillars of the evangelical movement are not enough to curb the enthusiasm, or at least the behavior, of the Republican front-runners?

Perhaps it’s that Christian evangelicals are not as solid a bloc as they have been purported to be. Cracks in their façade are nothing new. Think of Jim and Tammy Baker, of Jimmy Swaggart, of Ted Haggard. One of the beauties of the evangelical movement is that forgiveness is always available, even after the most hypocritical behaviors. If you want a little insight to the “transgressions” in the evangelical community, just read the lyrics to the great Jeannie C. Riley song, “Harper Valley P.T.A.” about what’s behind the evangelical façade. If you prefer, you can watch the video below.

I wanna tell you all a story ’bout a Harper Valley widowed wife,
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Harper Valley Junior High,
Well her daughter came home one afternoon and didn’t even stop to play,
And she said. “Mom I got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA.”

Well the note said, “Mrs. Johnson, you’re wearing your dresses way too high.
It’s reported you’ve been drinkin’ and runnin’ round with men and goin’ wild.
And we don’t believe you oughta be a bringin’ up your little girl this way.”
And it was signed by the secretary, “Harper Valley PTA.”

Well it happened that the PTA was gonna meet that very afternoon.
And they were sure surprised when Mrs. Johnson wore her mini-skirt into the room.
And as she walked up to the black board, I still recall the words she had to say.
She said I’d like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA.

Well, there’s Bobby Taylor sittin’ there, and seven times he’s asked me for a date.
And Mrs. Taylor seems to use a lotta ice, whenever he’s away.
And Mr. Baker can you tell us why your secretary had to leave this town?
And shouldn’t widow Jones be told to keep her window shades a pulled completely down.

Well Mr. Harper couldn’t be here cause he stayed too long at Kelly’s Bar again.
And if you smell Shirley Thompson’s breath you’ll find she’s had a little nip of gin.
And then you have the nerve to tell me, you think that as a mother I’m not fit.
Well this is just a little Peyton Place, and you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites.

No, I wouldn’t put you on because, it really did happen just this way.
The day my momma socked it to, the Harper Valley PTA.
The day my momma socked it to, the Harper Valley PTA

Donald Trump has been able to drive further cracks into the “evangelical industrial complex.” Who’d have thunk that he would have been able to carry the evangelical vote in the Bible-thumping state of South Carolina? He did not gain the support of the flock because he is “so Christian” (the lame reason he gave for why the IRS keeps auditing him). There has to be something more tantalizing about Trump.

Maybe it’s that he’s angry and he harnesses the anger of Evangelicals who “love and hate” sinners. Maybe it’s because Evangelicals are not promised seventy-two virgins that Islamic suicide bombers are promised, but Trump makes them feel that they too can become rich in the “here and now.” Maybe it’s because he casts away political correctness; something that many Evangelicals certainly do when it comes to issues of women’s rights or accepting diversity. Whatever it is, he has tapped in the American evangelical population in ways previously thought to be impossible.

While I find most of Trump’s ideas to be dangerous and simplistic, there is a certain whimsicalness about them, and the way in which he presents them. This, among other things, separates him from his Republican competitors, with the possible exception of Ben Carson. Perhaps in the minds of many evangelicals, Trump flies like an eagle, above the fray, and unencumbered by earthly restraints. If I was an evangelical and I wanted to know which Republican candidate would be most supportive of me when I took my teenage daughter with an unplanned pregnancy to the abortion clinic, it would be Trump.

Trump gives hope in ways that Cruz and Rubio never could. That resonates. The trick now is for more evangelicals, and more Americans overall, to recognize that real hope comes in the form of a Clinton or a Sanders. Who knows, as many conservatives suspect, maybe The Donald will eventually convince his present supporters that the Democratic path is the road to take. He “loves everybody.”

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Standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial before a throng of civil-rights activists in August of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech, one of the most powerful and enduring calls for equality and tolerance ever uttered on a public stage.

Dr. King proclaimed, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” With those words, Dr. King captured the most fundamental hope of every parent: that their children be allowed to follow their dreams without limit, free from presumptions about who they are or what they may achieve simply because of the color of their skin, their gender, their ethnic heritage, their religious affiliation, or their sexual preference.

For the sake of the children, Dr. King pleaded that day, America must live up to the most fundamental of its democratic ideals.

The questions raised by Dr. King’s speech fifty-three years ago are still as powerful and relevant today as they were then. They are questions worth considering on this holiday that honors the man and the legacy. Here are a few: Will we follow the path Dr. King and others forged and celebrate rather than denigrate the rich tapestry of our diversity? Or will we allow our differences to be cynically exploited to divide us? Can we overcome our fears and open ourselves up to the underlying content of a person’s character, no matter how different or foreign they seem to us? Or will we continue to believe falsely that the entirety of individuals can be summed up by the hoodies they wear on the street, or by the scarves wrapped around their heads, or by the manner in which they celebrate the dictates of their beliefs?

Below is a video of Muslim women from around the world speaking out about why they choose to wear hijab, what their choice does or does not say about them, and the challenges they face living as Muslims in Western societies.

I imagine Dr. King would have seen in these brave women echoes of the struggle he dedicated his life to. He certainly would have invited them to stand shoulder to shoulder with him on that stage because he would have understood that they too “have a dream.”

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